by Hans Bezdek
Phantom's Grasp
The One Armed Assassin Series
Book 1
by Hans Bezdek
Copyright © 2019 Herrin Enterprises LLC
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
The One Armed Assassin Series:
Phantom's Grasp (Book 1)
Released February 2019
Demon's Smile (Book 2)
Coming February 2019
The Arcane Staff Trilogy:
The Elf Thief (Book 1)
Released April 2018
Lost Citadel (Book 2)
Released May 2018
Final Barrier (Book 3)
Released June 2018
The Half Dragon of Yaerna Series:
Tumbler Short
The Ilkas Diamond Job (Book 0)
Released February 2018
The Gathering Arc
The Shattered Sword (Book 1)
Released December 2017
The Time Shield (Book 2)
Released January 2018
Grimkell's Mace (Book 3)
Released January 2018
The Heralding Arc
Durnskeep (Book 4)
Released March 2018
Ravendale (Book 5)
Released July 2018
Aelric (Book 6)
Released July 2018
Second Dragon War Arc
Darkness of Old (Book 7)
Released August 2018
The Ancient Crown (Book 8)
Released November 2018
The Winged One (Book 9)
Released December 2018
For a FREE copy of the prequel novella The Half Dragon of Yaerna: The Ilkas Diamond come subscribe to my mailing list at
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Feel free to reach out to me with questions or comments at
[email protected]
Chapter 1
Bacon.
It had to be bacon. The distinct smell was distracting as Anselm ran across the top of a clay shingle roof near the Alchemist’s Mansion. The food seemed like an odd choice to him right after midnight, but who was he to judge? He tried to pinpoint where the smell was coming from, eventually finding that it originated from a pair of guards in front of the Alchemist’s gate.
“Bacon sandwiches!” exclaimed the male guard, bringing the food up to his mouth for another bite. The man hadn’t bothered to shave and his armor didn’t fit him well. “Brilliant idea, Chloe!”
“Glad ya like it, Sten. Was me favorite aunt’s recipe,” said the female guard proudly. Short and round, she had a pleasant disposition about her. Neither looked particularly threatening.
“Think I know why she’s your favorite,” chuckled Sten as he chewed.
Anselm went prone on the roof and continued to listen to them for a few minutes as he scanned over the mansion again. He had come by the day earlier to get a feel for the outside of the building, noting the thirty-three windows, seven doors, and one secret entrance through a poorly kept rose bush.
He had been inclined to use the secret entrance since that sounded like the most fun. After all, what was the point of being an assassin if you didn’t get some joy out of the little things? Unfortunately, the sketch of the inside that Grayson managed to put together for him did not show where the secret entrance led to. Plus, on second thought, Anselm didn’t have a great desire to get covered in thorns.
“It’s so boring here,” sighed Sten, done inhaling sandwich.
“Lovely, isn’t it?” agreed Chloe.
“You’ve always been the best at finding the easiest jobs for us,” smiled Sten. “My brother-in-law, Terry, is also a guard. The man’s had the worst string of luck. He got hired to protect Baron Thomas and Arch Deacon Roberts.”
Chloe let out a whistle. “Bet he ain’t gettin much work no more.”
“Right you are,” nodded Sten. “People are worried hiring him will bring those contract killers around.”
“At least the blasted assassins are nice enough to leave most of us guards alone,” said Chloe. “Better to have an out of work brother-in-law than a dead one with a nice job.”
“Eh, I dunno about that,” shrugged Sten. “Terry’s a bit of a tool.”
Anselm smirked at the oblivious guards. It wasn’t that assassins like him were opposed to killing guards, it’s that they couldn’t. Well, they couldn’t kill them unnecessarily. The assassins of Durzheim had their own rules, and it was important for everyone to keep them. One of those included not killing guards unless they were going to kill you. The lower the body count, the less likely the Council was going to get involved.
Sure, officially the government was always inspecting homicides. In reality, though, the Council had struck a deal with the assassins of the city: Follow these rules, and you won’t be bothered. There was too much crime going on for the Council to waste the government’s resources on investigating everything, and it wasn’t like there weren’t always going to be assassins. Too many people were willing to pay a lot of gold to take out their enemies.
Chloe let out a sigh. “Think it’s about time we make our rounds.”
“At least we get to stretch our legs,” shrugged Sten. The two of them double checked to make sure the front gate was locked, then proceeded to walk around the building.
Anselm waited until they turned the corner and disappeared from sight. The assassin hopped down to the balcony, then jumped to the main street below. He cast a look around to see if anyone was watching, finding no one. Those with money and sense knew better than to be out after dark in the city, even in a nice place like this.
Even if someone had noticed him in passing, there was a good chance they would overlook him. Anselm had short, brown hair and matching eyes. He wasn’t particularly tall, nor particularly short. Most people probably viewed him as average, which was perfectly fine with him. Average people weren’t typically suspected of being deadly assassins.
The assassin ran up to the gate, jumped onto the guard shack, then hoisted himself over the gate. He dashed to the garden off to his right and followed it up to the side of the Alchemist’s Mansion. Pulling out a couple of large pitons and a small hammer, he quickly went to work driving them into the wall and using them to pull himself up to the second floor. According to Grayson, no one should be in the rightmost rooms of the mansion, so Anselm was banking on no one hearing him.
He reached out to the window closest to him on the second level and gently pulled at it. Just as he hoped, it was unlocked. Grayson earned himself an extra percent of the cut for his little undercover work he had done earlier that day.
Anselm tumbled into the room as quietly as he could, closing the window behind him. The room was completely dark and he was alone. He took a deep breath and tried to calm himself. This was going to be his 100th kill, and he was excited to reach that milestone. It had taken a couple of long years to get this far, with his fair share of mistakes early on. He needed to keep his cool to make sure he didn’t repeat any of those.
He took out Grayson’s map again to make sure he was in the right area. The Alchemist’s lab should be the back left room on the second floor, completely diagonal to him. There was typically a pair of guards outside of the lab, but if the Alchemist was working on something important, it wasn’t abnormal for him to call them off. Anselm had a way to take care of the guards but first needed to see if that was going to even be necessary.
Anselm slo
wly creaked the door open to make sure he could get into the hallway undetected.
He couldn’t.
“Oi, you there!” shouted a guard that had randomly been walking by Anselm’s door as he opened it. The man pulled out his blade and leveled it at Anselm before he could react. Unlike the two guards outside, this one looked in great shape. “Step out!”
Anselm put on his best smile, trying hard not to look half as frightened as he felt as he raised his hands and stepped into the hallway. The sword was just a few inches from his neck, and there wasn’t much he could do.
“What, uh, seems to be the problem?” asked Anselm.
“What are you doin in there?” demanded the angry guard, not moving his weapon.
“I-I’m here for the tour!” stammered the assassin. “I got separated from the rest of the group a-and I was looking for them. Turns out they weren’t in here!”
Grayson had managed to get all of the intel on this place by taking one of the tours they offered. The Alchemist’s Mansion was one of the nicest and oldest buildings in the western part of Durzheim, and they made a decent amount of gold every month by offering tours to people that apparently had nothing better to do. The Alchemist’s lab was off limits, of course, or else Anselm would have had Grayson set something up inside for him. It was too risky for the assassin to take a tour and then try to attack the Alchemist. The odds someone would remember his face were too high. The Council might not go after an unknown assassin, but one where a dozen witnesses could provide an accurate description? That was a different story.
“The last tour ended over four hours ago.” The guard narrowed his eyes.
Ah.
That wasn’t ideal.
“Fine…” sighed Anselm, looking disappointed and away from the guard. “I didn’t want to tell you the truth, but I guess I have no choice…”
“Good,” nodded the guard. “Come on, let’s have it.”
“I had a bad lunch,” tried Anselm, lowering his hands to hold his stomach. “I thought I could finish the tour before I had to run to the bathroom, but I couldn’t. Right before the tour ended, I rushed to the bathroom and have been in there ever since.”
The guard shifted uncomfortably.
“I hope you can understand why I didn’t want to admit that,” said Anselm, trying to sound embarrassed.
“I suppose I can,” grumbled the guard, lowering his weapon.
“I’ll just be on my way,” smiled Anselm, about to walk past the guard. He’d have to figure something else out and go for the Alchemist another day.
“Wait a minute,” said the guard, putting a hand up to block the assassin from leaving. “The tours end on the main floor. Why wouldn’t you use the bathroom by the entrance?”
“A reasonable question,” admitted Anselm, trying to buy time as he thought up an excuse.
At that moment, a loud crackle echoed down the hall. The guard glanced behind him, a worried look on his face. Anselm had no idea what had made that noise but knew he didn’t have the time to guess. Reaching into the pouch on his belt, he pulled out one of his darts and jabbed it into the guard’s neck.
Grayson had prepared these poisons, which didn’t always work as intended. After not mentioning to Anselm that the tours ended earlier, the assassin’s faith in him wasn’t particularly high at the moment. Also, the guard let out a surprised yelp and turned back to him instead of immediately passing out.
“What was that?!” demanded the guard.
“It was, uh, I mean,” stuttered Anselm, searching for an alternative as he hid the dart behind his back. “There was a mosquito?”
“There’s no way that was… was…”
The guard collapsed, immediately snoring loudly.
“He really needs to make that work faster,” muttered Anselm, dragging the guard into the dark room and closing the door to it when he was done.
Anselm continued down the hall, hugging the left side of it as he went. If another guard appeared, he planned to quickly run into one of the rooms. That had helped him avoid detection a handful of times, and only backfired once. There weren’t any more guards coming his direction, though, and he reached the corner of the hall without any more trouble.
Ever so slowly, Anselm lowered his body and peeked around the corner to see if the guards were in front of the Alchemist’s lab. He let out a sigh of relief when he saw that no one was there. Since Grayson’s knock out darts apparently took a few seconds to kick in, it would have been a pain to try and take the guard’s out before they sounded an alarm. It also meant that he should have the Alchemist all to himself.
Anselm hurried up to the door, careful not to make any unnecessary noises. He glanced around when he reached it, again not finding any guards. Aside from the unfortunate run-in with that first guard, this had proven to be a fairly easy and straightforward hit. That was a rare occurrence.
The assassin tried the door’s handle, a wicked smile spreading on his face when he found that it was unlocked. Anselm pulled his dagger out from behind him with his right hand as he pushed the door open with his left.
As expected, Anselm found the Alchemist in his office.
As unexpected, the man was already lying in a pool of his own blood.
“What the…” muttered Anselm, his mind racing to process what was going on.
A large man in an iron mask stood over the Alchemist’s body. He turned to face Anselm, raising a hand in his direction and charging it with blue electricity.
Chapter 2
“Woah, there,” said Anselm, raising his hands and dropping his dagger. “Easy, now. I’m an assassin, too!”
The man in the iron mask tilted his head as if contemplating Anselm’s claim.
“Really,” insisted Anselm, gesturing at his dagger. “I came here to kill the Alchemist, just like you. Seems like you already took care of that, though.”
After a few uncomfortable seconds, the blue energy around the gauntlet faded. The mysterious man lowered his hand and pulled out a folded piece of paper. Taking out a pen, he drew a line on it.
Anselm breathed a sigh of relief. Assassins killing other assassins wasn’t against the rules, but it was considered poor taste. If others found out you were doing it, they typically wouldn’t hesitate to take you out if given the chance.
The Alchemist’s lab was the size of three rooms in one, with plenty of cabinets and closets, but no windows. Bubbling liquids of every color imaginable sat in glass beakers across several tables, along with scattered notes and random chunks of metal. The room smelled of flowers, which Anselm guessed were used to make several of those bubbling concoctions. Although the room was fairly messy, it didn’t look like there was any damage to the Alchemist’s workstation.
Anselm walked over and squatted down over the body. The Alchemist was an older man wearing blue robes and very thick glasses. There was no doubt that he was dead, a cauterized hole in the middle of his chest. Anselm didn’t need two guesses to figure out what did that to him.
Assassins using magic wasn’t completely unheard of, but it was somewhat rare. Magic users typically found other, safer ways to make money. Even those that had a predisposition to work under the laws found other options, such as selling potions or enchanting weapons on the black market. Those that could use magic and still chose to be assassins typically were weaker in the magic arts, only able to run slightly faster, freeze water, or maintain invisibility for a few seconds.
That certainly wasn’t the case for this guy.
“I take it Demarcus hired you?” asked Anselm, shaking his head in annoyance. He hated it when employers hired multiple assassins and didn’t let anyone know. Anselm preferred to work slowly and to come up with a unique plan. He hated showing up after the target was already taken out. That meant no money for him. No money for him meant he had wasted the last few days, possibly missing out on easier and better-paying jobs.
The man put his pen away and attempted to slip the paper into his pocket. Anselm noticed the
paper missed the pocket and fluttered to the floor, behind him. He decided against mentioning it. After all, the guy had nearly killed him just then. He didn’t owe him anything.
“Demarcus?” asked the man. The iron mask had been set up to heavily distort his voice with high and low pitched cracks mixed in. “Demarcus who?”
Anselm hesitated, but only for a second. He hated to share his employer’s name, but if Demarcus was hiring other assassins for the same jobs, he had no intention of working for him again. “Demarcus Kirk.”
“Demarcus Kirk,” repeated the masked man, turning the name over and committing it to memory. “No. I was hired to remove the Alchemist by a different group.”
“Thank goodness,” said Anselm, picking up his dagger and putting it in its scabbard behind him. “I was afraid I wasted all of this time planning for nothing. I’m sure the same has happened to you before.”
“Not really,” said the masked man. He turned to leave then paused. “How did you get in here, by the way?”
“Wasn’t too difficult. Waited for the guards out front to make their rounds, scaled the outside to the second floor, came in through a window I knew was unlocked, and now I’m here,” Anselm shrugged. He omitted the part about getting caught and having to come up with a lame excuse about using the bathroom. No need for that to get out.
“Impressive,” said the man slowly. “Most of the assassin’s I’ve met simply run in and cut their target’s neck as quickly as possible. It sounds like you put some more thought into it.”
It wasn’t everyday Anselm received compliments. He awkwardly laughed and crossed his arms. “It… It’s really not that big of a deal. I’m just a fan of not getting caught.”
“That makes two of us,” nodded the iron mask. He reached his hand out again, this time without the magic. “You can call me Phantom.”